Lovers Lost
by Qalets
Summary: Final draft -edited and added two more chapters, sad story, involving a loss of a character
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: All characters involved are owned by someone who ain't me…

One of my first attempts at fic, so be nice, please R/R so I can see what you think

Disclaimer: All characters involved are owned by someone who ain't me…

Set sometime after "Witch Hunt"

Lovers Lost 

It was a familiar situation.

The same old crash, through the same old doors and the same old voices calling out the situation to the same old doctors stood at reception. This time I just happened to be one of them.

It was me who followed behind as the patient was sped down the corridor, across the same old linoleum, into the same old rooms, with the same old equipment and the same old smell, like chemicals and disease.

It was me who the attending paramedic fired facts at, each one crucial to the survival of the patient, all implanting themselves securely into my short-term memory, as each was trained hard to do. 

And all this time, during the same-old routine, I never once looked at the patient, never once asked for a name, not once did I think to myself that the moment I looked into the face of the person laying on the nearby gurney my world would fall apart at the seams. Taking an eternity to stitch itself back together into only a shred of what it used to be.

"Severe Gunshot wound to the chest, fired point blank, severe loss of blood, O-positive, unconscious when we arrived, found by passers-by who heard the shot…"

I digested the information bit by bit, as the gurney was pulled up beside the bed and the patient, wrapped in blood-soaked clothing was moved (on the count of three…) onto the already secured bed.

I don't know at what point it was that I actually looked up, or what it was that made my stomach churn with terror. Perhaps it was the hair, long and thick, matted with blood around gently curving shoulders. Or perhaps it was the hand, so long and delicate that lie gently over the side of the gurney, a simple line of blood curling its way through the crook of the thumb and first finger. Or perhaps it was Carter when he said flatly:

"Isn't this our psych. consult?"

My breath snagged in my throat, refusing to leave. Fear closed in, wrapping its long cold fingers round my still beating heart, squeezing. In slow motion I watched as the paramedic looked down at the chart she had brought in with her, at the name she had jotted without acknowledging, without caring.

"One, Kimberly Legaspi…" 

Fear tightened its grip.

"Okay we're gonna to need a chest tube…" Carter said steadily as he finished examining the patient. "Kerry, could you do this for me"

His hands were full, attending to the wound in my lovers' chest, he needed my help, I was her only hope.

And I couldn't move.

I was rooted to the spot, fear encompassing my body, shutting down all bodily functions, breathing seemed to have slowed to a minimum and my heart beat along with the heart monitor linked up to the patient lying on the table.

"Kerry!" His voice was shrill, desperate, finally pushing me into action, switching me as best I could into doctor mode.

Hurriedly I snatched up the chest tube kit, tipping back her head to allow the mouth to fall open and inserting… I couldn't do it, I froze, the thought of ramming such a large object down through such a delicate throat was beginning to make me feel ill. I felt faint, dizzy, felt as if I wasn't part of the room at all but watching the scene as it happened to another person.

"Kerry, you not done yet?" The effort to control the bleeding meant Carter didn't look up, instead a distraction was offered

"Stats are dropping!" Cried Haleh behind us as the high-pitched beep that mapped out the life of the patient began its terrified fibrillating.

"Okay give up on that, I need you to do CPR" He was treating me like a med student, like an inferior, like a child. 

It was how I was acting. 

This time I didn't even try to act out his bidding, I couldn't do it, I couldn't perform such a violent act on her, even if it would save her life.

Terrified I stepped back from the gurney, backing up against the wall, watching as Haleh took my place, standing where I should have been, placing her linked fist where mine should be, compressing the chest cavity, breathing life into the person I loved most in the world, the person I couldn't save.

"Clear!" It was Carter's voice, as he pressed the defibrillator paddles to her delicate chest. I watched as her body spasmed into the air, rising, falling, Haleh resuming chest compressions

"Clear!" Carer called again.

Slowly the violence and hustle of the emergency room slowed before my eyes. The desperation of the calling, the force of the chest compressions, the dash of the nurse sent to seek another lifeline for the patient, all moved into slow motion. Nothing seemed real, everything before me became detached from the situation. 

The same old room, with the same old occupants revolving round a different patient, a different life hanging in the balance.

Kim's life.

Time ticked by like an eternity. Slow, pain-driven minutes, each one branding itself into my soul. Silently I watched the events in the room as they unfolded, the monotonous repetition of the same old movements…1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Clear! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Clear! Causing the same old effect. 

I became acutely aware of my own breathing, the beat of my heart, the warmth of my skin, and the lack of hers.

I don't think a space of time as ever lasted so long, each second ticked by within years, the minutes dragging by through centuries. Noiselessly I aged in the corner of Trauma room one, my life dying before me, each attempt to save it causing only more pain, sending me one step closer to the inevitable end.

"Cease compressions" 

I'd heard it hundreds of times before, each time over a different patient, each time just as disappointing and painful as the last, but never had it hurt this much.

Time ceased to move at all then, it slowed to a stop, the moment captured in my mind, its negative inscribed onto my soul, to be developed and scrutinised many times in the years to come.

"Kerry…" someone was talking to me, I didn't feel like talking back. Time sped up around me as I turned, somewhat unsteady on my feet, from the last scene in which I would see her again. Numb with the pain and shock of losing her too fast I limped from the room, my heart as heavy as the crutch hanging from my right arm.

Reception was a blur of faces, each with its own private problems, experiences, losses, pain –none registered in my mind, each was only a shadow of the person, an outline with no substance, an obstruction to move around.

I felt no emotion, sitting in the doctors' lounge I felt as if I should cry for my loss, crumble into hysterical tears on the lap of some friendly co-worker, but I couldn't squeeze a drop. Without sensation I sat at the small table staring fixatedly on the refrigerator before me as it hummed quietly to the sound of my heart: strong, rhythmic, alive. Random thoughts and images flashed through my mind, things she'd said, I'd said, things we'd done, places we'd seen, experiences we'd had, the first time we kissed, our first "date"…

"You're a very beautiful woman…" The phase rang round inside my head, at the time I wish I hadn't said it, tried to erase it from my memory, put it to the back of my mind so I wouldn't have to deal with the feelings surrounding it. Now I dwelled on it, pulling it to pieces, fitting it next to her image in my mind, filing it away deep in my heart, storing it, keeping it.

"Kerry, are you okay?" Carters voice clicked me out of my dreams and into reality. Nothing seemed different, for some reason I'd expected everything to have changed…

I can't remember if I answered or not, whichever I did it caused him to take a seat across from me, his boyish innocence staring back at me under a floppy fringe, the concern there warming my heart a little.

"What was up with you in there?"

Opening my mouth I prepared to spill everything, her, me, our time together, the reason for my actions. But nothing would come out, nothing emerged from parted lips, I shut my mouth again.

"I don't know," I said finally, lying through my teeth. There was a long pause, neither of us spoke, neither knew what to say. Suddenly I rose from the table, moving determinedly toward my locker and taking out my coat.

"I'm not feeling to good, I think I'm going to take the rest of my shift off" roughly I pulled off my lab coat and stuffed it in the open locker, slamming the door hard before it fell back out again, not caring "Kovac will be in in an hour, before then I'll leave the ER in your capable hands…"

Carter rose as I left, his expression of shock, I didn't care how out of character my decision was, it was simply a case of having to leave, put everything behind me, the emergency room, the memories …her.

What's going to happen to Kerry?

Was it really wise to leave the ER under Carters supervision?

What happened to Kim?

Find out in the exciting conclusion of Lovers Lost


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: All characters involved are owned by someone who ain't me…

Disclaimer: All characters involved are owned by someone who ain't me…

Set sometime after "Witch Hunt"

Lovers Lost 

Part II

Two hours earlier

It was a familiar situation.

Or so I thought.

She'd arrived at the hospital a few hours earlier, clutching the life-less body of her child, blue, frozen from a long night on the Chicago streets. Once the baby had been taken from her she had become violent, lashing out at the nurses who tried to comfort her, screaming for the child she knew in her heart she had lost. In one such attack on a nurse she'd fallen and cut her head severely on the side of her gurney, causing her to be restrained, tied to her bed so she couldn't lash out, couldn't run, couldn't move. 

They had called for a psych. consult almost the moment she'd been brought in, I hadn't been able to she her straight away, the unaccountability of my job meaning I could be any place in the hospital when I was needed the most. I can't remember who I was seeing at the time, it could have the been the old lady who wandered into one of the wards and climbed into a free bed, or the man who thought he was a direct descendant of Jesus, we see so many, I don't remember.

When I arrived in the ER the girl was hysterical, screaming for her child, thrashing about on her bed in an effort to loosen the restraints, all of which we designed not to do so. Two guards were posted outside the door of her private room, her actions earlier causing them to be wary of her around other patients.

The guards parted as I walked toward them, recognising me as a doctor, knowing my face, one smiled flirtatiously and opened the door for me, not knowing. And why should he? I asked myself as I stepped through the door, closing it behind me, not everyone knew.

The scene before me was one I had experienced many times before, a male doctor I was unfamiliar with sat peacefully on the only spare bad in the room, paperwork spread out in front of him. He looked up as I entered and nodded his acknowledgment, going back to his work when he received one in return. 

The other side pf the room was a different story, I'm not sure I understood how the doctor could carry on with his work amid all this noise, the hysterical cries for a dead child, the raw torment of a mother caught up in loss. I was surprised to see how young she was, only about 15, dark hair caught up in ringlets around a coco-coloured face, dark eyes large and wide, terrified. When see saw me she calmed slightly, ceasing her cries, knowing someone was eventually listening.

"Where is she?" Her voice has an African lilt to it, an accent picked up from living with African parents, or in an African neighbourhood. Everything else about her was American, the dark denim of her jacket over a bright pink halter-neck and the popular scuffed white trainers on the end of matching dark denim jeans. Everything about her screamed "teenager", nothing hinted at "mother". 

Weighing my options I decided it best to ignore the question, not wanting to risk more distress. Slowly I moved across the room, taking a seat in the plastic chair next to her bed

"Do you know where you are?" I asked slowly, my voice as calming as I could get it 

"Of course I know where I am you stupid bitch! I'm in hospital…against my will. They took away my daughter and strapped me up good." To punctuate her words she pulled at her restraints, rattling them against the metal of the beside "What have you done with her? Where is she? Chellise!" She began calling her daughters name over and over, the distress in her voice rising with every agonising call.

There was nothing I could do but let her carry on calling, calmly I sat back in my chair, hoping she would wear herself out, knowing she couldn't go on forever. 

I was right. Two minutes later she lay her head back down on the pillow, exhausted. I tried again

"Can you tell me your name?"

"My name? What's that got to do with anything, I just want my daughter back"

"We'll talk about that later," I said gently, sidestepping the important question "First I need to know your name"

There was a long pause before she responded.

"Kasie, my name's Kasie" She said finally, contempt in her voice. Smiling gently I scrawled the name on the chart in front of me, not pushing for a second name, knowing I wouldn't get it.

"Hi Kasie, my names Kim" I said gently, soothingly, hoping to calm her, gain her trust "So how old are you Kasie?" I seemed to be getting somewhere; she was much calmer now, willing to cooperate

"'a'teen" she drawled, I raised an eyebrow, not buying it "'kay, I'm sixteen…" she mumbled something that I didn't catch; I didn't ask what she said, choosing to ignore it, it was better that way.

"And how old's Chellise?" I was careful in broaching the subject of her child, knowing it would cause more distress, hoping to lower her into the topic gently

"She's only tiny, not even six months old"

There was a long silence in which I knew she wanted to say more. After a long time she did

"When can I see her again?" her voice was much calmer now, she had obviously decided she was getting nowhere with me using violence. Again I sidestepped the question, not wanting to get too deep too soon, but I knew I wouldn't be able to avoid it for long

"Where do you live Kasie?" 

She was quiet for a long time. I sat and watched her, the room silent but for our breathing and the occasional rustle of paper as the doctor in the corner turned his page.

"We ain't got no home," She paused "Its just me an' Chellise, and we do fine, we don't need no one else" There were tears in her eyes now, fat, painful tears welling up beneath hazel irises, wide and innocent with grief and sorrow. "Where is she?? Where's my little girl?" Her voice was almost a whisper, raspy with tears, she knew the answer to her question already, but she needed to ask it one more time.

I took a deep breath, knowing I could skirt the subject no longer, owing it to this girl, this child, to tell her what happened to her daughter.

"Kasie, when you brought Chellise in, she was very cold, it's not good for such a young baby to spend such a long time outdoors, especially in winter. Kasie, the doctors, they tried everything they could, but there was no chance of saving her…I'm sorry…she died not long ago" There was a long pause, in which I could barely breathe. In the years I'd been doing this job I still found it impossible to weigh a patients reaction to news such as this, news that would shatter a persons life forever. 

To be told that the person they love most in the world has been taken from them, to know they will never see that person again, never hold them in their arms, never be close to them, is a feeling I could never come close to imagining, it's a feeling I never like to witness, and would hope never to feel myself.

I braced myself for a reaction, any reaction. A cry, a scream, anything. Nothing came; instead she kept her face turned to the wall, her body raked with hysterical sobs. For the moment there was nothing more I could do, I stood slowly, lying a hand against hers where it was secured to the bed, before padding gently across the room.

"Give her a few minutes then I think you can take off the restraints" I whispered to the doctor in the corner "she's calmed a lot now, I'll be back later on to see how she's doing"

He nodded in agreement and watched as I turned and left the room.

The next hour was a blur of faces -patients, doctors, nurses. Another case with a mixed up old lady, this time who'd wandered into the paediatric ward hoping to find her son, who'd died twenty years earlier, the resemblance between this case and my last spurred me all the more to go back to her, back to the ER, where I knew I wanted to be anyway.

I'd spent the last few weeks deliberately taking very opportunity to see the ER, to see Kerry again, spend a few precious moments with her between patients. It was a hard routine to get out of, one I didn't want to break. Over the last few days I'd come to realise that the way she had acted in front of Romano, although hard to forgive, could be easily forgotten. I hated to be apart from her, I had even decided to talk to her that day, make it right between us, make us "us" again. 

I never managed to.

The restraints were gone when I next entered Kasie's room, she was stood beside her bed, roughly pulling on her shoes which, I suppose, at some point must have been removed for her to get onto the bed. She was still crying, sobbing gently from beneath a bowed head, the end of a stitched cut clearly visible beneath the hairline. 

"Kasie?" A single word caused her to look up

"I'm going now, ain't no reason for me to stay" roughly she pushed past me, walking deliberately down the hallway toward the exit. I followed on behind obediently, knowing if she left now she would never come back, and I hadn't begun to talk her through her experience.

"Don't you think you should stay?" I called out to her, the people around me diffusing into the background, shadows of people, to get in my way, to step around

"Why?" she didn't turn round

"We have a lot to talk about" 

Finally I was close enough to touch her, I reached out a hand and placed it gently on her shoulder, hoping to turn her towards me, but she just shrugged me off. I tried again, this time she stopped, confronting me, face close to mine, making me jump.

"So wot we got to talk about then? I lost my baby, that's all there is to it, the doctor said I could go, so I'm goin'" 

"Who? Who said you could go?"

"Like I said a doctor, funny lookin' one, a woman, short, walked with a limp" She turned around again heading toward the exit. For a moment I didn't follow, digesting the information she had given me, before running to catch up with her, through the doors and into the parking bay.

"Why is you followin' me anyways? You don't care, no one in this shit-hole cares" I was astounded by the way she reverted back to the feelings she had reflected the first time I spoke to her, I thought we had come so far, I thought I had gained her trust, obviously I had been mistaken

"Kasie its me, Kim, of course I care, I care that you lost your child, the most precious thing in the world to you, and I care that your hurting now…" I trailed off; it was obvious she wasn't listening to me. We'd been conducting the conversation as she hurried away from me down the street, past stores and houses I'd never seen before, it was when I said this that she finally stopped and turned again, looking me straight in the face

"I don't believe you" She obviously had been listening "I'm nothin' to you, you don't care about me, or Chellise, I'm just another patient on your list, a little name to tick off when you're done, a full bed that needs to be emptied, I'm nothin'" The last few words she screamed in my face, I winced at her tone of voice, seeing the truth reflected in many of her words

"Kasie you aren't nothing," I called back as she began to walk away form me again, moving a slight distance away from me before stopping once again, "Kasie, you're just hurting, and I can imagine how that feels"

"Oh? Can you? Can you really? Do you know how it feels to be taken from the one person you ever really loved, the one thing that made you feel complete? Happy? I don't think you can really know that" She paused, her eyes were filled with pain, the agony of her words "You know how I see it?" She asked slowly, I dropped my head, unable to keep her icy glare any longer "How I see it is, I came in here this morning with my little girl in my arms, my little Chellise, and she was all mine ya'know? It was just her an' me, and we didn't need no one, not anyone or anything. An' look at me now, now she's gone, and I'll never see her again" She began to sob "And who do I have to thank for that?"

There was a long silence in which I held my breath. A peculiar feeling took hold of my chest, closing its long talons around my heart, holding it in its icy grasp. 

Fear. 

The cold, raw kind of fear that came with knowing something that was about to happen, something you had no power to stop, something that would change your world forever.

Slowly I raised my head to meet her gaze once again, catching her eyes, as in one fluid movement she pulled the revolver from her pocket and aimed it at my chest

"You"

A single bullet of a word, said with such misguided hatred, in conjunction with a single bullet.

The last word I ever heard.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: All characters involved are owned by someone who ain't me…

Disclaimer: All characters involved are owned by someone who ain't me…

Lovers Lost 

Part III

Present

The apartment was cold when I entered, the Chicago winter managing to creep in through ancient door and window frames cancelling out the little good work the heating systems may have done. However I barely felt it, I was chilled to the bone anyway, for entirely different reasons.

Closing my apartment door I didn't bother with the lights, and instead, after shedding my coat and bag, sat myself down on the couch, watching the pool of lights cross the floor as cars drove past my windowpane.

The numbness I'd felt in the emergency room still hadn't worn off, I barely remembered how I'd got here, which caused me to idly wonder whether I had been in a fit state to drive. The world seemed to be playing with the mute on, nothing made noise, or registered for longer than a moment in my mind before being cast aside for the next insignificant thought to take its place.

I'm not sure how I made it through the night, I know I never slept, never allowed my head to loll against the deep cotton cushions, or allowed my eyelids to fall. I never granted sleep to come, not wanting to end the day when I had last seen her, alive and dead.

I'm not sure I really understood the true nature of my feelings toward her until this moment, sat in the murky dark of my apartment illuminated only with the cruel orange of the street lamp stood to attention outside my window. It was now everything became clear, in the inky blackness of the night, that I did never, and could never think of life without her, the cheerful face in the ER when I needed to see it so, the smell of her hair, the dazzle of her smile, the smoothness of her voice. I don't now how I could have turned my back on it before, and now its gone, leaving me behind in a world I cannot comprehend without it.

I'd read somewhere, a long time ago, that a bond between two women could never be defined or explained by man, it was a sacred force, untouchable by those outside it, infallible. I remember thinking that it would be wonderful to experience a feeling of such, I never thought I truly would, and up until this afternoon didn't think I had.

Until it was lost.

Until it was no longer infallible. 

Until she was gone.

I spent that night replaying in my mind every moment we had spent together, every encounter, every word, every experience

"I can't just be your friend Kerri…"

"I didn't want to wake you…"

"I can't believe you said that…"

I could see her lips as they formed every word, feel her cool breath on my cheek as she said them, hear her voice ringing around my mind. If I closed my eyes I felt as if I could simply reach out and touch her, lay my head on her shoulder as she sat beside me, turn and bury my face in her mass of curls, lose myself in her scent.

I spent that night dwelling on her, grieving for her without shedding a tear, recalibrating me life to run without her, missing her. Gradually the darkness of the night faded into the warm light of morning, I continued to sit where I was, faintly aware of a birdcall in the distance, signalling the new dawn, welcoming a world without Kim, I blocked out its song, refused to accept the new day and instead crumpled into exhausted sleep. 

Terrible dreams haunted me while I laid out on my couch, images, morsels of our time together ran around in my mind, teamed with another image, a reoccurring one, one I couldn't get rid of no matter how I tried. The image of her laid out in front of me, the blue tint of her skin a startling contrast to the bright red of her blood pouring from a violent wound in her chest, one that couldn't be healed.

And like that bullet hole, our love lay open and bare, never to be knitted together, left gaping, painful, unfixable.

Slowly in my dream the heart within that helpless figure, unconscious, unbreathing, a personification of our love, creased itself it its final beat, and from my vantage point above the gurney I watched as she died before me, again and again and again.

The shrill call of the telephone finally pulled me from the loop of my nightmare, I woke with a start, not fully comprehending where I was, why I was there, what was happening. On automatic pilot I reached across the arm of the couch and picked up the telephone, placing it to my ear before I remembered, and my heart split itself in two once again

"Kerry? Kerry is that you?" A thick Croatian accent called at me down the phone, pulling me from my own pain, back into the pain of reality.

"Yes" I sighed slowly, surprised I still possessed the ability of speech "Yes, its me"

"Kerry, where are you? We were worried"

"What…what do you mean" My head was still filled with the numbness of pain, I shook it gently to try and clear the thick mist of my mind

"Your shift began an hour ago" He paused, I didn't know what to say, "What is the matter Kerry? You left in such a hurry yesterday that Carter had to run the ER for a little while"

"Yes, yes, I know, I left him in charge"

"You did?" The shock in his voice was tangible

"Yes, yes I did. Look Luka, I'm not feeling so good right now, I think I'm going to need to take my shift off"

"Well, okay Kerry, I am sure we can find someone to cover for you, but…"

"Thank you Luka" I cut him off, rapidly putting the receiver down before he could cut back into the conversation. Left alone again, I fell back into a restless sleep.

The ER was a hive of activity, walking up the corridor I had to dodge to get out the way of nurses, running for equipment, a doctor roughly pushed past me, heading the same way I was, but in more of a hurry, as far as I knew I'd never seen the man before but somehow he was recognisable. Racking my brain I pictured his face as it looked up at me from a stack of paper work, glad to see my presence.

Shaking my head I moved on, towards reception. 

It was a familiar scene. Randi stood at the telephone, having a conversation with the person on the other end around a wad of chewing gum, Carter was next to her, tapping away on one of the computers while having a hushed conversation with Abby at the same time, Luka appeared briefly, before picking up another chart and leaving once again. 

Taking a quick glance at the patient board I realised the reason for the rushing around, we had multiple traumas in, the board was practically filled, and yet it seemed very unfamiliar, as if this wasn't the board I looked at everyday.

The numbness I had felt last time I had witnessed a scene such as this still prevailed, I had no idea what was going on around me, could barely put names to faces as they rushed past a body I felt I wasn't in control of.

Four seconds later it all became clear, as I walked through the Doctors' Lounge door and came face to face with myself.

"Kerry I've been looking for you" The world went on around me as I tried to digest the information, my voice spoke without my say-so, I had no control over what was happening, I was merely a witness

"Kim…" Kerry stood; or rather I stood, responding to my comment. My head was reeling; did she (did I?) just call me Kim?

"Kerry, can we talk?"

"Yeah, sure, um, yes sit down" She (I?) was flustered, confused, she stuttered slightly as she spoke, the meeting catching her by surprise. I (she?) did as I was told, sitting slowly on a chair opposite her, facing the refrigerator, and its familiar hum.

"Kerry, I've been meaning to talk to you for a while, I..." I paused, gathering my confidence "I wanted to see if I could make it right between us" I said it in a rush, obviously having rehearsed it many times before. Kerry (I?) was stunned, shock clear on her face

"You…what?" Her voice was gentle, quiet, disbelieving

"I've been feeling awful after the way I treated you before, I know this is hard for you and sticking up for me in front of someone like Romano is no easy task…" I laughed gently, hoping to lighten the situation, failing "I think I realised that although it wasn't the nicest thing you could have done for me at that time, you have many good reasons not to have spoken up, I mean its practically forgotten now in the department, I'm back at work and things seem to be almost how they were…" I trailed off, hoping for help, I got none "I suppose what I'm trying to say is I'm willing to forgive you… and I want you back Kerry"

There was silence. From my jumbled up position inside someone else's head, two sets of thoughts ran through my mind simultaneously. The first was fear, hope for her reaction, while the second was why I was there, witnessing this situation.

Kerry (I?) was astonished, dumbfounded, I watched as she opened her mouth to talk, but then closed it again without uttering a word. 

"What do you say?" My voice was quiet, full of nerves. Finally Kerry let out a breathy laugh, a smile crossing her face

"Kim…I don't know what to say"

"Yes?" I responded playfully, I didn't have to see through my own eyes to see the beautiful smile on the face from which I was looking out, I could picture it in my mind, I'd seen it so many times before

"Yes…"

Like a cut scene in my mind the image of myself saying that perfect word was lost and another took its place. I was walking into an exam room in the ER, a doctor sat in the corner, if I'd had time I would have recognised him as the doctor from earlier, but like in the last scene I had no control over my body, and it moved before I could get a proper look. On the other side of the room stood a girl, leaning against her bed as she pulled on a pair of worn old sneakers, as I watched my body took me forwards toward her, and, as I spoke it, a single word caused the girl to look up into my face…

"Kasie?"

I woke with a start. Emerging into a warm, light, familiar room far form the feelings I had experienced in my dream.

Sitting up I realised I was still laid out on the couch, my head resting in a pool of sunlight, which had found its way through the open curtains.

My head was in a whirl, a thousand feelings had flashed through my mind when that unfamiliar girl looked into my eyes, hope, caring, fear, distress, pain and in that same moment I suddenly knew what had happened that day, how Kim had come to be laid out on a Trauma Room bed, bleeding heavily form the chest, her life slipping away.

I don't know how I knew it, I simply did, that what I had experienced was not simply a dream but a message. It was Kim telling me that all had been forgiven, and although we were now apart, we would always be together, in our dreams. 

In our hearts.


End file.
